For Eternity and Today
by IvyDawn
Summary: Erik Lehnsherr crafts the best jewelry in New York City. Charles Xavier is a socialite with a string of fiancées who keeps coming to Erik's for engagement rings.


They had a routine. The details varied, but the theme never changed.

The bells would jingle, the light bronze merrily announcing the familiar face.

"Whom is it for this time?", Erik would ask without looking up.

"Her name is Kitty, she's smart and brilliant and she's in love with her roommate Ororo. She doesn't know it, yet, but she'll probably figure it out within the next days. She'd like something coppery gold."

And Erik would nod and get to work.

* * *

><p>New York City.<p>

The chase had led him here.

And the chase had left him here.

Klaus Schmidt was dead, his body ripped to tiny little pieces by vicious shrapnel, his whole being liquified and poured into the Hudson River.

Erik had spend hours standing at the cold and empty pier, watching the smear of blood red peter away in the black water. Only when the sun began to rise again he allowed himself to turn his back on the dark waves lapping at Manhattan's stones and face the glowing city.

_I could be happy here_, he told himself and didn't believe it.

* * *

><p>He ended up staying. The city was churning with humans and no one payed attention to one more crittering away in the streets. People and their dreams were dwarfed by the tall towers huddling closely together and only offering slits of the sky above when it pleased them.<p>

Erik became one of the many shipwrecked rafts drifting through the city. He would smile and show too many teeth and hide his eyes behind dark lenses. ATMs yielded money easily enough when nudged and the landlord in Harlem was happy to receive his money in cash.

Sometimes, he would make his way down into the crawling network of the subway system, the creaking metal turnstiles at 103rd Street happily admitting him and he'd find comfort in the maze of steel and iron. He'd let winding tracks lead him to abandoned stations, old dark halls filled with air that hadn't been breathed in a century.

It felt wrong to disturb the darkness that had been there before he had even been born, so Erik didn't, the iron in the walls and in the ground was eager enough to show where to step safely.

It was here in the dark, far underneath the bright city lights that he started crafting, absentmindedly creating the most exquisite piecess from scrap metal, bringing little figurines and delicate jewelry to perfection, only to crumple it all up with the next breath.

Sometimes he would end up wearing some of the pieces he created, more because he would forget about it rather than deliberately taking it out for the world to see. But the world noticed, or rather a woman called Emma Frost did. She was immaculately white, frighteningly beautiful and so pristine it hurt and she had noticed strands of metal delicately intertwining in ways no one had ever seen before.

She introduced herself as an art manager, all clipped words and sharp nails tapping away on her phone. She declared that she'd never let him get away with his talent and that they would create a new jewelry line, right here, right now.

Erik didn't really see a reason agree, but he also didn't see one not to. So he just insisted on naming their line Edie and let Emma decide on the rest.  
>Within weeks he had stopped accosting ATMs, money was flowing easily enough and Emma set him up with a beautiful workshop cum gallery between 5th and 6th avenue.<br>Erik didn't mind, in truth, he was glad - or at least something approximating glad.

Emma told him what to do and when to do it and even though nothing she ever said was really of any consequence to him, she gave him direction.

Before, hunting down Klaus Schmidt had determined his every action, that man had been his compass - a terrible, painful and blinding one, yes, but a compass nonetheless. When he had died so had the sole purpose Erik had ever known.

Erik hadn't been planning on killing himself - he had a vague feeling that his mother would have probably disapproved - but he had absolutely no idea how to go about living a life either.

* * *

><p>The first time he met Charles Xavier, the man was very cheerful and very decidedly on the drunk side of tipsy.<p>

"I need an engagement ring for a woman I'm not going to marry," he announced loudly before even fully entering the shop. Behind him, Erik could make out the pinched face of an unhappy PA in a limo, clutching a phone to his chest. His brand new customer didn't seem to notice.

"I heard you were the best," he instead continued with a bright smile, alcohol slurring his words ever so slightly, "and I need the best ring you can make me. Something light, flimsy, misty. Her name is Amelia Voght and she'll be gone by next Christmas but right now I need a ring to do her justice."

He was holding a glass of scotch in his hand, right in everyone's sight, blithely unconcerned with getting caught drinking in public. Some rules didn't apply when you had the right name. A name like _Xavier _meant entitlement that was too deeply ingrained to ever be erased.

"That is alcohol," Erik stated very calmly, eyes trained on the too-happy face in front of him.

"Yes! It dulls the voices in my head." A grin on red lips to signal that he was kidding, but Erik could tell that he wasn't. Huh.

Charles raised the hand that wasn't occupied with the glass to his temple. "Oh!" Blue eyes went wide and Erik found himself staring into dilated pupils, glazed with shocked delight. "You're _different_, too!"

Before he knew it the stranger in his shop had pulled him into a tight embrace, fingers clenched into the fabric of his shirt.

_I am a telepath_, a voice echoed in his head, suddenly sounding far more sober. _I mould minds and thoughts the way you mould metal. You're not alone, my friend. _

Erik felt a wave of calmness that wasn't his own and allowed himself to release the breath he had been holding for the last two decades. On that first day, Charles Xavier smelled like warm expensive leather and even more expensive alcohol.

* * *

><p>It was never said out loud, but Charles Xavier kept returning to Erik's and only Erik's.<p>

They ended up in bed with each other from time to time, but against the backdrop of finally having found someone else that was _different_ it was almost inconsequential.

The lovely delicate platinum ring for Amelia Voght was followed by a rose gold beauty for Kitty Pryde, a simple silver band offsetting the startling green of a glittering emerald for Gabrielle Haller and a heavy ornate gold creation for Lilandra Neramani.

* * *

><p>Once, he asked Charles why he kept doing this, kept proposing to women he knew he wouldn't even spend a year, much less his entire life with.<p>

"Maybe I do it so they realize who they actually love and find their soulmate," Charles suggested with an earnest look in his too-blue eyes.

That was so ridiculous it actually startled a dry laugh out of Erik. "You're not that selfless," he pointed out. "You like to pretend you are, but you're really not."

Charles smiled an easy smile. "Well, no one will ever actually fall in love with me. So I might as well steal some of the happiness. I like their happiness. It's brief and but the moment they say yes, God, yes!, the happiness is like bright champagne. Bubbly. Sweet." He shrugged carelessly. "Or maybe I just really like engagement sex."

Erik didn't ask again.

* * *

><p>And so they had established their routine, playing the same song over and over again, the little bronze bells eagerly offering their intro.<p>

"And whom is it for this time?"

"A lovely lady called Moira. She's beautiful and fierce and lovely and will leave me for Sean Cassidy in about three weeks. Four, if she's feeling particularly bad about it."

Erik would nod and craft a beautiful ring while Charles would sit on his work table, entranced by the metal spinning through the air. He would look like a small kid, his legs dangling in the air, utterly transfixed by the dance of platinum or gold.

Erik would take his time, more time than strictly necessary, would allow the metals to playfully chase each other or tug on Charles' hair.

"Stone?", he'd finally ask.

"Something red. Sean Cassidy is a redhead. Make sure it clashes."

Erik would nod and pick the brightest ruby he could find, offering it up to Charles like a small morsel to taste. Charles would nod with exuberance, delighted by the beauty and Erik would mould the ring around the stone, sealing his work with a tiny _E_ carved into the gold.

"Thank you, my friend," Charles would smile softly and breathe a kiss on his cheek.

"Maybe the next ring I buy will be for you," he'd say with a wink and a wave goodbye.

And the bells would jingle lightly while Erik would think about that one ring hidden away in his bedstand, with sapphires as blue as calm water on a summer day.


End file.
